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A memorable review
Dec. 14th, 2012 03:00 pmHey,
So I just finished up Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer. This is a bit like Wordplay in which a journalist gets involved in some geeky sport and suddenly gets really good at it. In this case, the event is competitive memorization.
Yeah. Memorizing long strings of words, digits, names and faces and, the signature event -- memorizing the order of one (or more) randomly shuffled decks of cards. Joshua covers an early American competition for Discover magazine and in the process meets up with the characters who are big on memorization.
To accomplish these feats, the contestants use a system known from antiquity as the Memory Palace -- in their mind's eye, they walk through a familiar place and at various points they install a fantastic image that's tied to the object they want to remember. The trick is that they practice so as to be able to do this very, very quickly.
There's nothing super new or unusual about this and Mr. Foer proves that anyone can make it work for them as he trains hard and eventually competes at the National Championships the next year. He makes a pretty good run at it.
So I didn't glean a whole lot of new insight but I did come across:
1.) Giulio Camillo who wanted to build an occult Theatre of Memory that would unlock the secrets of the universe to everyone.
2.) Giordano Bruno had this crazy set of 5 concentric wheels with 150 markings each that would encode the world (or at least get him burned at the stake).
3.) Most interestingly, a world with few books changes the nature of reading. You can't go to your local library for something new, there's just the one or two books you have so you read and re-read and basically commit the book to memory. Now, books will often fall out of your head. This is why I make these notes and why my dad has about 500 western novels he just reads over and over again.
Anyway, an interesting book and a quick read. Nothing amazing if you keep up on brain science, but it's nice to look into forgotten corners of human endeavor.
later
Tom
So I just finished up Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer. This is a bit like Wordplay in which a journalist gets involved in some geeky sport and suddenly gets really good at it. In this case, the event is competitive memorization.
Yeah. Memorizing long strings of words, digits, names and faces and, the signature event -- memorizing the order of one (or more) randomly shuffled decks of cards. Joshua covers an early American competition for Discover magazine and in the process meets up with the characters who are big on memorization.
To accomplish these feats, the contestants use a system known from antiquity as the Memory Palace -- in their mind's eye, they walk through a familiar place and at various points they install a fantastic image that's tied to the object they want to remember. The trick is that they practice so as to be able to do this very, very quickly.
There's nothing super new or unusual about this and Mr. Foer proves that anyone can make it work for them as he trains hard and eventually competes at the National Championships the next year. He makes a pretty good run at it.
So I didn't glean a whole lot of new insight but I did come across:
1.) Giulio Camillo who wanted to build an occult Theatre of Memory that would unlock the secrets of the universe to everyone.
2.) Giordano Bruno had this crazy set of 5 concentric wheels with 150 markings each that would encode the world (or at least get him burned at the stake).
3.) Most interestingly, a world with few books changes the nature of reading. You can't go to your local library for something new, there's just the one or two books you have so you read and re-read and basically commit the book to memory. Now, books will often fall out of your head. This is why I make these notes and why my dad has about 500 western novels he just reads over and over again.
Anyway, an interesting book and a quick read. Nothing amazing if you keep up on brain science, but it's nice to look into forgotten corners of human endeavor.
later
Tom
